The British Hockey Thread 2015-2016

[Calv]

Heh, my name will be one of the 500 fans names on the back of the Braehead Clan Top Scorer jersey for the CHL this season https://www.facebook.com/cramotopscorer ... 05051640:0

[archibalduk]

How did you manage that?!

Ric Jackman to Braehead!

[archibalduk]

The official EPIHL twitter account says no new team next season, maybe the following season. Farcical!

Not many details from the other forum, other than £35,000 of ice time allegedly hasn't been paid!

Interesting about the tenth team. From what was reported about the Silverblades forum, the initial proposal was to bring either Widnes or Invicta into the EPL. I read that it was voted 5 against 3 by the EPL teams (I guess maybe they need more than a simple majority to approve it). It sounds like the plan is now to rebrand the Manchester Minotaurs the Altrincham Aces and, I presume, bring them into the EPL for the 2016/17 season.

I hadn't appreciated Silverblades and Planet Ice had so much power/control over teams to the extent they can choose which league they play in.

It's potentially good news for me if Manchester end up playing out of Eastlands as planned. That's not all that far from Manchester Airport. So potentially I might be able to catch the odd game by flying up there - depending on how accessible it is and on what day they play their games (hopefully a Saturday night).

[Calv]

For the Jersey, there was a Facebook sign up, 500 fans names from each team was to be put on the back of each clubs top scorer jersey. Some teams didn't manage 500. I decided to go with Braehead for a bit of a laugh and they were just short of the 500.in total they got about 600 likes in Facebook, so I had about a 5/6 chance of getting picked!

With regards to Manchester, I think any move to a permanent rink will be a good move for them. Altrincham is not a nice rinkand has terrible sightlines.

[archibalduk]

Interesting rumour that Deeside will be the 10th EPL team (owned by Red Hockey)... I'll believe it when I see it!

[Calv]

Hull have folded

[Calv]

Manchester Storm are "back" (playing out of altrincham)

Interesting season ahead, hockey hasn't exactly flourished in the Altrincham rink previously, will Planet Ice make it work? Especially as they're starting from scratch with sponsors and fans etc. I imagine a lot of Phoenix fans will follow them (rather than Storm), particularly if they get a new city centre rink/arena.

Is there enough of a market for 2 teams playing out of/near Manchester?

[MWE]

Will Hull being playing in another division or are they done altogether?

[Calv]

No idea, we'll have to wait and see. Best you can do is to strap yourself in and enjoy the baffling (if somewhat entertaining, but not in an enjoyable way) ride that is an off season in British hockey

[MontySteelers]

Looks like Hull have gone completely. I believe some Stingrays fans have started a crowdfund thing to have an EPL team, but I can't see it happening next season.

In regards to Phoenix, I really don't think that city centre rink will happen, the costs will be too much I think. I wonder how much of what PI accused the Phoenix of was actually true now we know about the Storm?

[archibalduk]

I wonder how much of what PI accused the Phoenix of was actually true now we know about the Storm?

I don't think there's any conspiracy, to be honest. I think in all likelihood it's purely coincidental.

Hull folding was down to Rapid Solicitors pulling their sponsorship at the last minute in addition to the rink introducing ice time charges. Had Rapid Solicitors pulled their sponsorship back in early April when the dispute between Phoenix and Silverblades first became public then I would have thought that would have allowed enough time for Hull to secure alternative sponsorship. If I remember rightly (and I'm not 100% sure now), I don't think it has been disputed that Silverblades did offer Phoenix the opportunity to stay at the Dome but they turned it down.

If you believe the EIHL and Silverblades then the arrangement came about in the past week or so. I would imagine that the EIHL approached Silverblades with the suggestion of running an EIHL team given that they were looking to establish their own team in any event (and had in fact failed to secure an EPL spot for the coming season).

I fear for Phoenix's long term future now. It seems likely they'll be playing out of Deeside for the next season or two. If you were living in Altrincham/Manchester, would you rather walk/tram/drive a short distance to see the Storm or sit on a coach for an hour or so to see Phoenix play? I'm sure the hardcore fans will stick with the Phoenix but I feel that in the long run, the convenience of seeing a local team will be appealing for many fans. As for the proposed rink in Eastlands, Phoenix don't even have any planning permission yet...

As for the Storm - will they really do any better than Hull out the Dome? It's a relatively small rink and the sightlines are really poor. I guess the advantage the Storm have over Phoenix will presumably be a lack of ice time costs. I imagine that is offset to some extent by the fact Silverblades will still have overheads in providing staff, etc for each game (which would ordinarily be covered by charging ice time). But then again I guess they'll be able to keep all of the ticket receipts. Who knows.

Dave Simms tweeted today that the EIHL will be a 12 team league in 2 years' time. London Emperors are allegedly all but officially confirmed now.

I can't help but feel that the EPL is likely to be the loser in all this. It was already a bit of a struggle with the 9 teams and now there's going to be that risk it drops to 8 if Phoenix start to flounder.

[Manimal]

Hull folding was down to Rapid Solicitors pulling their sponsorship at the last minute

Blaming them lawyers, eh?!...

I fear for Phoenix's long term future now...would you rather walk/tram/drive a short distance to see the Storm or sit on a coach for an hour

In England, the arenas are so small that the fans gets to sit on the coach.
I hope he has some broad shoulders

[Calv]

I fear for Phoenix's long term future now...would you rather walk/tram/drive a short distance to see the Storm or sit on a coach for an hour

In England, the arenas are so small that the fans gets to sit on the coach.
I hope he has some broad shoulders

You're not far off! My local rink sees crowds of around 100-200. The benches are basically an area in the seating where they took the seats out and put in a couple of benches. I used to stand at the back row of the rink (which is also the 4th row!) right next to the away bench, with just an aisle between me and the away players.

They've taped off the end 4 seats now though (it's actually the best view in the place as well)

[Calv]

As expected, Davies & D. Phillips sign for Storm.

Phil Hill signs for Telford, he's looked pretty poor for the past couple of season now.

[archibalduk]

Heh there's all sorts of rumours about the EPIHL now. Apparently there will be an announcement tomorrow morning confirming a new Hull team in the EPIHL. And now there's a rumour that Red Hockey will set up a new team in Deeside to play in the EPL. So there would be the Deeside Dragons in the NIHL and the Flintshire Freeze in the EPIHL.

This is all too much!

[archibalduk]

So it's official, Manchester will play out of Deeside this season: http://www.manchesterphoenix.co.uk/news ... de-2015-16

[Calv]

Heh there's all sorts of rumours about the EPIHL now. Apparently there will be an announcement tomorrow morning confirming a new Hull team in the EPIHL. And now there's a rumour that Red Hockey will set up a new team in Deeside to play in the EPL. So there would be the Deeside Dragons in the NIHL and the Flintshire Freeze in the EPIHL.

This is all too much!

I think maybe Flintshire were the 10th team, but that was probably dependent upon Manchester having a rink to play out of!

Crazy times, even for British hockey, lots of rumours.

Absolutely terrible communication & PR from Phoenix:

Original tweet a while back - they're delighted to announce rink plans for 15/16, involving temporary rink for a year followed by permanent rink. No talk of a back up or having to travel for a year.
On Phoenix TV they then talked about maybe having to travel for a bit. No official PR on this.
At the fans forum - 80% chance of temporary rink happening, but maybe Deeside or Sheffield. Mentioned the 10th team again.

Followed by silence for a while, then they'll release a statement afternoon of 30th June, then they'll release a statement afternoon of the 1st. Finally at 9:45 pm they release a statement saying they'll be playing out of Deeside for a year, but definitely permanent rink next year, but no details. No planning application. No site?

Never really been a huge fan of Neil Morris, I don't like his the whole world is against us attitude (this dates back to long before this mess), everything is always someone elses fault and Phoenix are the small fish. His attitude towards the fans hasn't always been great either, and he appears to have split the fan base somewhat.

Also, what is the EPL doing? They really need, at the very least an official website, some sort of official spokesperson and a chairman who actually does something. None of this mess should've been made public. The 10th team has never been confirmed by 'the league'. That should never have been mentioned publically either.

The Elite League is far from perfect, but they can at least sort their league out and have 1 team coming in when 1 leaves, they also have a chairman and spokesman and a website and all the other basics. EPL really needs to sort itself out.

[marksbros6]

Glad I found this thread, was going to ask you guys what you thought about the Storm coming back...rising errrrrr...phoenix-like I suppose from the ashes.

Never been a fan of Phoenix, they certainly don't strike me as this plucky little club fighting the power! They're quite well backed sponsorship wise and always seemed to have plenty of cash.

Agree that the EPL needs a website and better media communication like the Elite-League model.

Very excited about next season, but anxious to know what format the league will have and who the teams will be!

[Calv]

Agree that the EPL needs a website and better media communication like the Elite-League model.

Very excited about next season, but anxious to know what format the league will have and who the teams will be!

I think it needs a significant increase in professionalism and a strong chairman to sort out the bickering. I think that goes for the whole of the EIHA as well.

Sounds as though there are 3 ownership groups looking to start an EPL team in Hull. It will be difficult to see how they are going to compete this season, a significant number of Brits are already signed up. From the current Hull players, I think that there's only Towner, Chilcott, Stubley, and Ralph that are free. Chilcott might be good enough for 1st line EPL, Towner is okay too but nothing special. The other guys are young and probably not good enough yet for 1st or 2nd line in the EPL. Stubley sounds as though he has potential.

They might be able to get some players from the Hull Jets NIHL team, but again will they be good enough? I think netminding in particular will be an issue. The best thing they could maybe do is to try to tempt Declan Ryan across the pennines, or go with an import.

[Tasku]

So, have I understood the situation correctly: you have two competing leagues in Britain? Why won't they merge? Seems like one bigger league would be better than two smaller ones.

[Calv]

The answer to that is so long, you could write a book about it!

A long time ago we had the Ice Hockey Superleague (ISL). This was a reasonably high standard of hockey, very few british players, high wage cap, Manchester Storm once sold out the MEN arena with over 17,000 spectators. This all collapsed as it was just too expensive and unsustainable, and several clubs went bust including Manchester Storm. It turns out of those 17,000 spectators that were at that game, not that many actually paid for tickets!!!

The league below this was the British National League. This had fewer imports and more emphasis on British players, although this still allowed 8 imports I think (this is a bit before my time!)

After the ISL collapsed, the remaining teams (Belfast, Nottingham & Sheffield) wanted to start a new league. They preferred having more imports, with less emphasis on British players, mainly to keep the skill level as high as possible. Those 3 teams have large arenas and their isn't enough appetite for watching lower quality all-British player games at the crowd levels that are required to cover the costs of the arenas (The obvious thing to do here is to develop better quality Brits, but that seems far too difficult for the governing body....!!)

So those 3 teams start the Elite League, along with Basingstoke, Cardiff, Coventry, London & Manchester. However there was a huge row when they tried this. The league did not get affiliation with Ice Hockey UK (IHUK, the governing body for hockey responsible for Team GB, but not the individual leagues), which meant they would've had difficulties getting work permits so they wouldn't be able to sign any players. Also, Nottingham's arena was unhappy at a non-affiliated team playing out of their arena. This eventually got sorted with IHUK.

However, the BNL teams were not happy with this. They had lost some of their teams to the Elite League and there were probably other reasons too. I am not 100% sure on the facts. However, the BNL clubs decided that they would start registering websites and company names with Elite League in them to try to disrupt the other league. In particular, the owners of Guidlford Flames & Fife Flyers started up the companies Elite League Limited and Elite Ice Hockey League Limited, just so the EIHL teams couldn't call their company that!

After 2 season of EIHL and BNL, I think the BNL collapsed, because Newcastle and Edinburgh left the league to join the EIHL. The other BNL teams dropped down to the English Premier League (EPL), apart from Dundee & Fife who dropped down to the Scottish National League (SNL). The EPL allows 4 import players (max. 3 on ice at one time), the EIHL currently allows 13 imports. The structure is something like:

IHUK - The national governing body for Ice Hockey. They are in control of the GB teams, and is the umbrella body for the sport in the UK. They deal with the work permits.
EIHL - The Elite League pretty much govern themselves, but they work closely with IHUK because pretty much all of the Senior Team GB players/staff come from the EIHL.
EIHA - English Ice Hockey Association. They are in charge of the leagues and junior development in England & Wales, this includes:

EPL - The decisions about the EPL are made by the teams and have to be voted through by some majority (not sure what it is)
National Ice Hockey League (NIHL), which is split into South 1, South 2, North Laidler & North Moralee conferences.

EIHA are also in charge of the England teams that play at Junior levels.

SIHA - Scottish Ice Hockey Association. The scottish version of EIHA. The top league is the SNL, which is similar to NIHL but probably slightly worse.

So, you can see that it is quite a disjointed system.

Even within the leagues themselves, trying to get cooperation is difficult. In the EPL, a company called Planet Ice own a few of the clubs and some of the other rinks. Another company called Red Hockey now owns 1 club (Telford) 49% of Bracknell & 33% of Manchester Phoenix. These two companies don't like each other. Since the decisions are made by vote, you can see that nothing will get done whilst there is a difference of opinions! After Red Hockey invested in Telford, they went from bottom to top signing several players from other clubs and bringing in veterans from the EIHL and 52 week contracts (most contracts last for the season only). There was talk that at one board meeting, Planet Ice initiated a vote to remove Telford from the league because they didn't like what they were doing!!! Obviously this failed.

The EIHL seems a little bit more joined up in it's thinking.

The problem is there is quite a large gap in terms of crowds and professionalism from the top to the bottom (even within each league). It's difficult to get a joined up system here, although things might be improving slowly.

[Tasku]

I see. Well thanks once again for answering my curiosity, Calv.

Pretty much everything I know about British hockey originates from this thread.

[Calv]

Pretty much everything I know about British hockey originates from this thread.

Haha

A lot of that stuff goes back to before Colin & I really followed the sport. We watched Manchester Storm a few times, but not living that locally we didn't go very often. I think I was only 14 when they folded so I didn't know the politics etc.

British hockey is filled with rumours, people in the know, people pretending to be in the know, and people making stuff up. It's also filled with politics and teams regularly going bust!

This off season has been particularly turbulent!

[archibalduk]

Never been a fan of Phoenix, they certainly don't strike me as this plucky little club fighting the power! They're quite well backed sponsorship wise and always seemed to have plenty of cash.

As I understand it, they're pretty heavily in debt. Aren't they still paying off debts to the EIHL or whoever helped bail them out in the final few EIHL seasons?

A lot of that stuff goes back to before Colin & I really followed the sport. We watched Manchester Storm a few times, but not living that locally we didn't go very often. I think I was only 14 when they folded so I didn't know the politics etc.

British hockey is filled with rumours, people in the know, people pretending to be in the know, and people making stuff up. It's also filled with politics and teams regularly going bust!

This off season has been particularly turbulent!

I think we first went in 1999 (Storm vs Knights). I still actually have the game programmes from the two Storm games we watched. But I was always more interested in the NHL to begin with. I only started to get interested in seeing British hockey once I finished university and finally had some income to spend on seeing games (along with the spare time to travel by train to see the games as there were no teams near my uni).

As I understand it, the dispute/disjoint dates back from the time of the Ice Hockey Superleague which replaced the British Hockey League in 1995 or 1996 (but I'm not sure how or why). The Superleague was effectively a rival of the English Ice Hockey Association's leagues (i.e. the BNL and EPL). I don't think the rivalry is really there any more - but there's still a lack of cooperation and hence British hockey is so disjointed. It has been really detrimental to the development of young players and to the national team in general. The EPL is a bit confusing because it is classed as a developmental league for some reason (it's to get around immigration/EU, IIHF or tax rules - I can't remember which) - but really it's just a semi-pro league.

The biggest mess by far is now the rivalry Nick describes between Red Hockey and Planet Ice (and their sister company, SilverBlades). There is basically a three way split - those teams owned (either wholly or partially) by Red Hockey, those owned by Planet Ice/SilverBlades and, effectively stuck in the middle, those owned by other entities. The Phoenix-Planet Ice issue has all been played out in the public sphere when in reality it should have been kept entirely private. And it really hasn't helped when the press officer is posting frequent rants on forums and Facebook - one post of which was rife with profanity.

[Tasku]

Sounds like a lot of unhelpful bickering.